NOEL WINS DAMAGES FROM MIRROR

The paper concedes that the Oasis guitarist did not lie in court in order to achieve a quick divorce from Meg Mathews...

OASIS songwriter NOEL GALLAGHER has won his legal case against THE MIRROR newspaper, which wrongly claimed in a report that he lied in court about cheating on ex-

wife MEG MATHEWS to achieve a quick divorce.

It emerged today (May 25) that the guitarist has been awarded “substantial damages” and the newspaper ordered to publish an apology, for the story which ran in January under the headline: “I lied about cheating on Meg to shut her up”.

The piece stated Gallagher had lied in court in order to get a quick divorce from Mathews, deliberately stating in legal

documents that their relationship had collapsed because of his adultery. The pair say the piece caused them both considerable hurt, distress and

embarrassment, with Gallagher’s ‘lie’ representing contempt of court on his behalf, and implying complicity in the move by his solicitor Anthony Burton.

The apology, which will be published tomorrow (May 28), reads: “Noel Gallagher, in his divorce papers, makes it clear that the adultery

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alleged by his former wife, Meg Mathews, as being the reason

for their divorce took place after their separation.

“Yet in an article we published on the 19th January 2001 we said that Noel had lied to the court in this respect and that his lawyer

(Anthony Burton of Simons Muirhead & Burton) was concerned because he feared that the judge may throw the petition out and

charge Noel with contempt of court.

“Having been shown the divorce papers, we can confirm that Noel always made it clear that the adultery took place after he separated

from Meg Mathews and we accept that Noel would not and did not lie to the court.

“We accordingly apologise to Noel and to Mr Burton, his lawyer (for suggesting that he continued to act for Noel, despite knowing that he had lied to the court).”